Posted on 08/26/2003 7:04:02 PM PDT by Golden Eagle
SCO Defends Against Open Source Advocates
By Mitch Wagner
SCO defended itself against criticism by the open source community, saying Unix code used in Linux comes from its own, copyrighted version of Unix, not - as Linux advocates argued last week - earlier versions that have been released into open source.
SCO also said the General Public License (GPL), a popular license for releasing software into the open source community, violates U.S. and international copyright law.
SCO, which owns intellectual property of Unix, is fighting a legal and marketing campaign to show that Linux contains sufficient proprietary Unix code that Linux distributors and users are ripping off SCO. SCO sued IBM in March, claiming that IBM included proprietary Unix source code in Linux, and later SCO warned Linux users that they, too, could be subject to intellectual property lawsuits if they failed to obtain legitimate licenses from SCO. SCO introduced a $699 license this month for Linux users.
SCO has been closely guarding its evidence - the allegedly stolen source code - disclosing it only people willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement. However, last week SCO disclosed some of the code at a presentation at its SCO Forum conference in Las Vegas. Linux advocates, including Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond, obtained copies of SCO's slides, and posted responses to the Web, saying that SCO's own evidence undercut its case.
Perens and Raymond said that some of the code disclosed on the slides, governing memory allocation, comes from early, "ancestral" versions of Unix that were released into open source by SCO itself, while SCO was doing business as Caldera.
But SCO said that, while ancestral Unix versions have earlier versions of the code, the code was refined in SVR4.1, and it's the later version of the code - still proprietary to SCO - that appears in Linux.
Chris Sontag, senior vice president and general manager of SCOsource, the company's business unit for licensing SCO's intellectual property, said another vendor copied proprietary memory allocation code from Unix into Linux, removed the original copyright notices and attached its own. SCO would not identify which company did the label-switch.
Linux advocates also said last week that the memory allocation code is only used in versions of Linux for IA-64 systems, such as systems running on the Intel Itanium chip, representing fewer than 10 percent of Linux installations. The vast majority of Linux installations are running on IA-32 systems such as Intel's Xeon processors.
Sontag accused the Linux advocates of splitting hairs.
"What's at issue is that there is copyrighted Unix System V code, Version 4.1 code, copied into Linux. Whether it is used broadly or not, it is widely published and available. SCO's copyright is stripped out and others are taking credit in violation of the copyright," Sontag said.
Perens said that one of the examples of allegedly stolen code shown by SCO last week was, in fact, from Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF) routines taken from BSD, which is covered by an open source license.
But Sontag said the BPF routines were not intended to be an example of stolen code, but rather a demonstration of how SCO was able to detect "obfuscated" code, or code that had been altered slightly to disguise its origins. The slide displaying the code should have been written differently to reflect that intention, he said.
"It was an example of our ability to find moderately changed or obfuscated code, it was not an example we are using in court," Sontag said. "If they want to go off and make a big defense on that, they are welcome to it."
Sontag said the code examples SCO chose to disclose last week were not its best examples, merely the most easily understood ones. Perens had said the examples SCO disclosed were likely to be SCO's best, and underscored the weakness of SCO's case.
"He's wrong, he doesn't have examples of the evidence. We do. He is trying to put a happy face on a problematic situation for the Linux community," Sontag said. "Try as they might to come up with arguments to bolster their position, the facts and everything we know are extremely strong in SCO's favor."
SCO also focused criticism on the GPL, which is the license for many open source projects, including Linux. The license states that GPLed software and source code must be available to anyone. Modifications to GPL software are subject to the same provisions.
The Free Software Foundation developed the GPL, and defines free software on its Web site.
Linux advocates say that SCO undercut its own case by releasing its own version of Linux under the GPL. The SCO version of Linux contains the disputed code and - even if the code was once proprietary - SCO released it into open source when it released its own Linux, the advocates argue.
However, Sontag said that argument holds no water because SCO never intended to release its proprietary code into open source. "U.S. and international copyright law asserts you cannot inadvertently and accidently assign your copyright to someone else," Sontag said.
Moreover, SCO said its proprietary code in Linux does not meet the definition of free software as stated in the Linux GPL.
"The Linux GPL itself asserts that the valid legal copyright holder has to place a notice at the beginning of their copyrighted work, the source code, identifying the code and the GPL. It requires an overt action. SCO has not contributed its code, and as soon as we became aware of the copyright violation we suspended our distribution," Sontag said.
Their loss. Overzealous copy protection annoys legitimate users and doesn't deter pirates.
Us proprietary folk have HAD IT with you internet theives
Back to the ad hominem. Are you out of rational arguments already?
I think when more proprietary software people start looking over that code the way that SCO did there will be a lot more lawsuits. Linux has developed for the past five years the same way MICRO$OFT has, legal, quasi legal and perhaps even illegal "filch 'n' copy". Why do you guys think software patents even exist. They exist to protect the genuine innovators in software from this wild west attitude.
Then later, I invented MIDI music. That was in 1968. I'm not sure whom to contact about my royalties on that. I wired the tone generators I had build for a portable electronic organ to a Bi-Tran Six computer had the computer playing music for the visitors at Poly Royal in SLO.
And speaking of portable electronic organs, I almost built the first one about the same time. If CMOS had just been invented back then, I would be rich. The RTL logic I used just drew too much current. Casio owes me big time.
If that is the case, then why are you supporting SCO? They didn't write that code, Dennis Ritchie did. As the creator, he is the legal owner. He transferred the rights to AT&T (his employer at the time). AT&T transferred it to BSD (U.C. Berkeley), who released it under the GPL. Legally, SCO has absolutely no claim on this code; their only claim to "Unix" is that they bought the rights to use the name from Novel (who previously had purchased it from AT&T, AFTER AT&T had already transferred the rights to the code in question to Berkeley).
You appear to be confused. Did you not realize that SCO didn't actually write this code (in fact, they have not contributed to it in any way, other than to release a version of "Linux" in an attempt to cash in on the efforts of others)? Or do you believe that a corporation has some arbitrary right to stake a claim on something they didn't invent or develop (or, in the case of SCO, even contribute to) just because they have a large number of lawyers?
Well the judge has control over what is admissible, then the jury can decide. But it will certainly be shown to them, just not to any spectators. After the trial is over, if SCO wins the record will be sealed. We may never actually know how much there is/isn't.
Certainly not, but they did purchase most rights to the code so it is theirs whether they actually developed it or not. Your argument seems equivalent to claiming one can't actually own their house unless they were the ones who originally constructed it.
A huge number of linux users paid for it by writting it. SCO is trying to steal the work of thousands of programmers.
You say "the code was hijacked"...SCO has asserted the existance of such code but never produced a single example. The sole fragment that they did produce turns out to be both technically trivial and public domain. And their story has changed again. That code really was not an example of the filched code, just an example of how the filched code was found. Sure, right.
If darl and co are ever forced to produce their source, there will be stolen code found, all right, code stolen from the open source community by SCO. And, right now,my claim has just as much evidence behind it as SCO's. So, who's is more credible?
That is called a straw man. If you have to misrepresent your adversary's arguments to refute them, you have a problem with your own case.
GREED is why that stuff exists.
Some folks are never satisfied.
If that happens, $CO will be deep in legal liability for distributing code which is protected by hundreds (if not thousands) of individual copyrights, under which $CO has no rights to distribute.
The rights to copy/modify/distribute come only from the GPL. Without that, they're toast.
Perhaps Darl McBride will ask the judge to have the jurors taken out back and shot.
After the trial is over, if SCO wins the record will be sealed.
That's a doubtable proposition, especially since the source code has already been widely published. But it's funny to imagine that SCO will file a Scientology-style lawsuit against the news media when they post the evidence on their web sites.
I read that it's looking like some of the code that SCO is waving around was in fact written in the 70s by the Bell/Unix guys, which is really going to convulute things.
I am quite sure that FR and everybody else using Linux will still be chugging along years from now, while SCO will be a footnote in computing history.
Not directed to you, but on another thread, some freepers were bashing Linux/GPL/etc. as being "communist", "socialist", etc. when FR runs on Linux, and if somebody wants to write something as a hobby or whatever and give it away to others, it's their right to do so.
There is no stolen code in Linux. Linux is as simon pure as the driven snow. The GPL is not communist but is a great innovation of capitalism.
It would make perfect sense to me, too, if they weren't still distributing the alleged infringing code from their own website.
By their own claims, they are releasing GPL'd code without following the GPL, which means that they are hijacking the work of thousands of independent contributors to the Linux system without any form of restituion. In other words, they are doing exactly what they are accusing (without making public any proof other than repeated assertion) the Linux community of. With one exception -- if the supposedly infringing code was contributed with someone else's copyright (as SCO is claiming), then the Linux community was acting in good faith. (Indeed, the maintainers have repeatedly offered to remove such code if SCO can prove it was improperly contributed.)
SCO, on the other hand, is not acting in good faith. Instead, they are intentionally using the work of other people in order to profit from it, in violation of the license agreements attached to such work.
And yet the SCO defenders have the nerve to call Linux developers and users "theives".
"I am here to tell you that did not release the source code under the GPL! We are not afraid of Linux - we own it! I have detailed information that we have slaughtered the IBM infidels and they committed suicide in their cubicles! Allah is roasting their stomachs in Hell! I would not lie to you. Everything is okay!"
Lucky you.
Be it humble, there's no place like home.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.